The book the Scarlet Letter written by Nathaniel Hawthorne, follows the story of Hester Prynne who is punished for the crime of adultery. The story starts off when Hester and her three month old baby, Pearl, is being brought out of prison and put on a scaffold and publicly humiliated. While she is standing there she spots her husband. Two years prior, he has sent her ahead to Massachusetts and was planning on coming later but never made it. He signals to her to keep quiet. While on the stage, she is encouraged by Reverend Dimmesdale to reveal the name of her companion. But we later find out that he was her companion. Once Hester is thrown back in the prison, she is visited by her husband who used the alias as Roger Chillingworth, the physician. He told her he forgave for cheating on him as long as she promised to keep his identity a secret. Once Hester was released from prison, she moved to an isolated cabin house. She made a living by needlework. She was very skilled but no one would ever hire her for weddings or special occasions. One day Hester heard that people were saying that she was an unsuited mother and that Pearl should be taken away. Determined, Hester and Pearl walked down to Governor Richard Billingham’s office to try to persuade him not to take Pearl away. When they got there they found Roger Chillingworth, Reverend Dimmesdale, and Governor Billingham. The Governor asked Pearl some religious questions and Pearl didn’t know the answers. The governor was prepared to take Pearl away when Reverend Dimmesdale stepped in and said Pearl looked like an A and that she would remind Hester of her sin every day. His statement changed the Governor’s mind allowing Hester to keep Pearl. Reverend Dimmesdale always seemed sick and always held his heart so people convinced him and physician Chillingworth to live together. Chillingworth already suspected Dimmesdale of being Pearl’s father. Chillingworth found out that the Dimmesdale was Pearl’s father...

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...English 3 AP
21 October 2011
The Struggle for the Soul of Arthur Dimmesdale
In the novel, The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne relates the struggle of Dimmesdale’s soul to the classic model of good vs. evil.
Arthur Dimmesdale has committed a sin that is heavily frowned upon throughout his community, though; nobody in the community knows what that sin is besides Hester Prynne. Dimmesdale is the minister of the community and he has committed the sin of adultery,...

...Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter is obviously full of symbolisms. The main symbol is of course the scarlet letter itself – the badge of shame that Hester Prynne is forced to wear after she gave birth to her illegitimate daughter Pearl. This child with its peculiarity and unusualness is also a very strong symbol. In principle symbolism is also represented through other things and characters, e.g. Roger Chillingworth, Arthur Dimmesdales heart, the woods or nature.
But...

...race faces a life-changing problem that ends up being saving one’s life. This is seen in Hawthorne’s The ScarlettLetter, where Hester is punished for her sin and the symbols that throw her off of society’s circle are adapted to represent her in a preferable way. The two symbols that represent her sin of adultery are pearl and the Scarlettletter. As the transformation of pearl and the Scarlet letter appear, they reveal the...

...Similarly, in the novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the color red is especially prominent. Color is important in this novel because every color has symbolic meaning behind it. This device of symbolism is used well in the novel, especially through the color red. It is the most important color because it is used the most, in the title of the book, and the color of the ‘A’. The color red symbolizes passion, shame and ultimately love.
In The Scarlet...

...﻿The Scarlet Letter List of Symbols
Scaffold- The scaffold is a place where most of the important scenes in the Scarlet Letter take place. It was placed under Boston’s earliest church and was made of wood and iron. The scaffold is a place of shame and punishment for anyone in the community that commits a sin. It is the most public place in the Puritan society and used for torture of the sinners as they walk up the steps and stand there for hours at a time. In...

...Hawthorne uses common themes throughout many of his stories, such as the novel The Scarlet Letter and the short story “Rappaccini’s Daughter.” The common theme shared between these two stories is corruption. Hawthorne uses light and dark imagery, diction, details, and other elements to bring out themes in his stories. Hawthorne is very detailed, even when it comes to the smallest things, such as the Scarlet Letter that was worn by Hester. In Hawthorne’s stories...

...The Role of the Scaffold, “the Platform of Pillory”, in the ScarlettLetter and what it represented
Thesis: The Scaffold was the platform of humiliation.
The Scarlet Letter is a novel that revolves around the repercussion of an adulterous encounter in Puritan Boston. It emerged that a young beautiful woman (Hester Prynne) bears child with a respected clergyman (Reverend Arthur Dimmesdale). According to the Puritan Code, this would lead to public...

...Summary: The novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the 1850's, was a book involved in the ubiquitous movement of Romanticism. The main story is set in the Massachusetts Bay Colony (modern-day Boston), a colony newly established by English Puritans.
The novel, The Scarlet Letter, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne in the 1850's, was a book involved in the ubiquitous movement of Romanticism. The main story is set in the Massachusetts Bay...